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This article should be redirected to WP:NOT#Failing. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-02-14 15:41Z

"A modest proposal"

I think I have a pretty clear solution for this problem:

1. Flag all articles with their rated Class and Priority (averaged if more than one project has rated them)
2. Flag any unrated article with "Unrated, but presumed a Low-priority Stub-class"
3. Outright warn readers that any article not rated F.A. should be treated with caution.
4. Readers that articles rated below G.A. should be treated with blatant suspicion
5. Have Wikipedia not return searchs results for articles rated below G.A. directly, but with an intermediate page saying basically "we have no good article on this topic, but do have one that is inferior; do you still want to see it?"
6. 1-year limit on every article, to achieve G.A. status, or be auto-deleted (can be recovered to userspace for further work)
7. 1-month warning before this happens.
8. 3-month limit on Stubs to achieve Start class.
9. 1-week warning.
10. Direct advocacy of removing unsourced information from articles; reverting such a deletion will trigger a new 1RR rule with regard to unsourced information. The uw-unsourced tags for warning users against the addition of such material would be used with the same vigor and consequences as the uw-vandalism warnings.

What else tough but quality-reinforcing can be thrown in...?

11. De-sysop every admin, without exception (but maybe a 2-month warning) that does not pass the enhanced Diablo test, and make it part of Policy at RfA.
12. Add fame and importance criteria back into the notability concept, until such time as consensus agrees we have G.A. or better articles on every important topic that should be in an encyclopedia.

How's that? I think every article but maybe 10, maybe even less, that I've spent any significant work on would get nuked under this policy, but I'd sure be working hard to improve those few gems up to better-than-Britannica F.A. standards instead of futzing with 300 stubs of dubious merit here and there! And we'd be rid of the "fancruft" that may complain consumes 90% of WP's human and electronic bandwidth.

Or then again, uh, maybe Wikipedia isn't failing. Perhaps some people just have highly personal particular expectations that aren't being met?

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Your first set of suggestions are amazing. But I do not agree with the second part starting from "What else tough but quality-reinforcing can be thrown in...?"
I recommend this suggestion to be seriously considered. --169.229.6.145 00:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
[I'd forgotten all about this post, did not watch this page, and certainly didn't expect this level of feedback about it.] Um, just in case this wasn't clear to anyone: I WAS KIDDING. I thought that the "A Modest Proposal" heading would give that away. I actually think a handful of the ideas have a grain of merit apiece, if de-extremized, but please. The proposal as a whole was meant as an ironic comment on the projectpage to which this talk page is attached. Anyone who knows me on here at all would know this was a joke from point #12 alone, give how hard I argued for months against such subjective nonsense. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I took your last two points as an obvious joke. But you should have been much more outlandish with the rest if you wanted them to be clearly humorous. Worldtraveller 00:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I made your list numbered, hope you don't mind. I think number 5 would do amazing things for overall quality, as would number 8 (I suggested something similar to that a while back). 6 and 7 would also help a huge amount. Of course, many people would probably object to GA being used as a standard, but in principle I think those four measures would absolutely transform things in a very short time. I'd also add that new articles which cite no sources a week after their creation should be speedy deletion candidates. We have to get some things right from the very start.
For me as well, that would mean a lot of my articles getting wiped. Even though I enjoyed writing FAs particularly, and did 24 of those while I was actively editing, I made loads more unreferenced stubs. I expect the majority are still stubs, a year or two years on. The encyclopaedia would hardly be much worse off if they were temporarily removed. Worldtraveller 00:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Your numbering didn't seem to stick; looks like someone reverted it, not understanding WP:REFACTOR. For the record, people should feel free to recast a talk page bullet list as a numbered list if they honestly think that will be somehow useful, and people need to get over their YOYOW possessiveness about their talk page posts; Wikipedia is not The WELL. I put the numbering back, just so these followup discussions make sense (and noting again, as above, that the entire post is an ironic joke.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
These are excellent ideas, although I need to mention that there are numerous B-class articles of very high quality, whose authors have not initiated the whole "nomination" thing.
Consistent with your ideas, I'm thinking of starting a WikiProject Unassessed Articles that would allow us to rank articles for importance and quality, even if they don't have a sponsoring WikiProject of their own at present. Does that seem like a good idea to the people here? Hoping for constructive feedback, Willow 00:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
This would be duplicative of existing efforts. The WP:1.0 project is already handling this. The WikiProjects, like WP:BIO are using their article rating system. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Other than our stub, there is no information on the web about Meade Island. Would you delete a valid, attributed, irreplaceable (on the Web) article simply because it has a stub tag on it? I share Worldtraveller's views on unattributed information, but I find the idea of deleting brief but fully attributed stubs absolutely deplorable. Hesperian 00:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
The fictional "me" that wrote this piece would say, "Yes! If no one cares enough about your silly little island and its article, it is self-demonstrably non-encyclopedic, and will never, ever have a Featured Article, and since the goal of WP is for every article to eventually achieve F.A. status, it must go." In reality I'm a quasi-inclusionist, so of course I would not actually advocate removal of a well-sourced stub, and I think hard-core immediatists need to go soak their heads. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Heh, following these standards Wikipedia would never have gotten off the ground at all. :] --CBD 00:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
That was half the point (the other half being that an arguably rational position can be defended that things have changed ergo WP's nature has to, to "keep up with reality". I leave it to the reader/editor to determine just how defensible that view is; cf. User:Worldtraveller's material below, and the very existence of this document. If it were absurd it would be ignored. But the fact that is sparks honest debate doesn't mean that it ulitmately represents the truth either.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, Hesperian, if actually the article says all that reasonably can be said about the island, then it shouldn't be marked as a stub. Stub means 'very small article which will be expanded later'. I think when SMcCandlish said 'delete' he made clear that didn't mean delete really, but move or hide or otherwise take out of article space.
I actually meant (in a devil's advocate way) delete, though intentionally left in the caveat that any so-deleted article would be userspaced on request for further work. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
CBD, you're quite right, but then what got Wikipedia off the ground will not necessarily correspond to what will transform it into a reliable and authoritative reference work. Worldtraveller 00:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that it says all that reasonably can be said. But I do think that anyone seeking information on this obscure island would search the Web with very low expectations, and would be overjoyed by how much information Wikipedia has. Making this information inaccessible would be cutting off our nose to spite our face. Hesperian 01:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Or, to put the devil hat back on, requring people who believe the island to be of encyclopedic value to really do their homework and make a fantastic article about it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
So what is stopping it saying all that could be said? How long is it likely to stay a stub, in the absence of an incentive to expand it? Worldtraveller 01:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
(i) The difficulty of sourcing information, which I believe to be out there, even if I haven't found it yet. (ii) In the absence of an "improve or delete" imperative, it will probably still be a stub in 100 years. That is an argument in favour of such an imperative, only to those who think well-written, neutral, fully attributed stubs are a bad thing. Hesperian 01:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Do you see it as a problem if unfinished articles remain unfinished indefinitely? Shouldn't we have an incentive to encourage people to finish articles rather than just stub it and run? By the way, fully attributed does not apply to the vast majority of stubs, and I think perhaps the article we're talking about right now shouldn't be called a stub. Worldtraveller 18:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, sounds like a "Start"-class article, though I haven't looked at it myself (and not like I'm an authority on such things; just saying I'm agreeing in principle, not on specifics. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, changes like this now would be worse than having it that way from the start. With the restrictions in place from the beginning you'd have a very slow process which would probably die of inertia, but could plod along and amount to something after a hundred years or so. Basically... Nupedia. Putting strictures like this into place NOW? Immediate insanity of unimaginable scope. A hundred thousand screaming Pokemon/South Park/Boy band/Whatever fans all going ape shit simultaneously. The site would be completely trashed and never recover. --CBD 01:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Addendum to "Proposal": 13. So, when they cross the line, ban them. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I doubt they'd have that much impact actually. I doubt many people would get angry, especially if restrictions were only placed on new stubs with a much more generous timescale for existing ones - similar to how unsourced images were purged. Worldtraveller 18:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
To me (1), (2), (3) and (4) seem excellent suggestions. The rest are a bit radical though. --Aminz 02:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Ya think? >;-) I'm frankly surprised that 1-4 went over well! That's kind of scary actually. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I imagine that implementing such an idea would devestate a large proportion of the encyclopedia. Assuming that people could stomach the idea of working to have it deleted, to work to have it deleted (like building a sandcastle where the waves are lapping). Some articles might be recreated over time and deleted again a year later. Result: more wasted effort. In reality, most people would just leave. --Seans Potato Business 02:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
That was the idea I was trying to get sarcastically across, in opposition to the essay this talk page belongs to. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't believe for a second that most people would leave. Yes, according to WP:1.0/I, assuming no-one did any stub expansion, 64% of all articles would be under threat; but without any incentive at all to expand or improve, then most of them will never become non-stubs anyway. The project would be much better off if they were merged into broader articles. If we had a culture that viewed barely-started articles as a bad thing, and a suitable length of time before sanctions against them were enacted, huge numbers of stubs could be expanded. Worldtraveller 18:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Obviously this is a terrible idea, but there might be something useful to fish out of it. Some of the worst elements of this proposal:
  • Any unrated article is assumed starting out to be an unimportant stub. What? 1.0 has about 193,000 articles assessed out of 6,914,380. The others are all unimportant stubs? I just had a look at a few of my own articles - computational phylogenetics, implicit solvation, and homology modeling all fall into the unassessed category; they may not be that important, but they certainly aren't stubs. This proposal assumes that we can realistically get all (or at least the vast majority) of articles assessed. I don't know, I'd rather be writing them than writing 'B' on the talk page.
  • In practice, 'B' is used to mean 'this article is in a usable state'. There is no accessible rating above B for most individual assessors. Claiming that all B-level articles are of low quality or should be treated with 'blatant suspicion' is nonsense.
  • The GA process cannot cope with the massive influx of articles that would result from something like this. GA is already perpetually backlogged, and the quality of the reviews varies so enormously that it's effectively useless as a means of getting feedback on an article. The number of people just clearing the backlog, reviewing articles that they know nothing about, can only increase. If I can use my own as an example again (those are the ones I remember, you know ;), computational phylogenetics failed GA with a review that said, and I quote, "the prose, I was starting to fell asleap". (It later got a much more useful review from an expert, fortunately.)
  • Since assessments are given by a single user, what's to stop me from thinking, 'hm, I wrote this pretty okay stub 2.9 months ago and nobody's edited it since, but it's pretty big for a stub, I'm just going to call it start since it would be dumb to delete it'. With 1.6 million articles, are these things going to be noticed? If they're going to be policed more strictly, where will we get the police?
  • Unsourced statements aren't evil. I categorically oppose any variation of 'all unsourced material will be deleted, period' because some people have such incredible difficulty with concepts like 'common knowledge', and this causes a have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife situation, since nobody wants to be on the side of lax referencing and low standards.
A less invasive idea: introduce a simple wikiproject certification scheme. Binary decision, 'this article is usable as a reference on the topic' or 'this article is not usable as a reference on this topic'. The intuitive response to the limitations of the existing assessment system is to add more dimensions, but that would only worsen the inter-project inconsistencies. Also, the emphasis on utility eliminates the tendency in grading schemes to use them as relative rather than absolute ranks; if an article is 'start' under the current system but hits all the basic points on a subject and contains a reference to a source of more information, it could still be certified as usable. Articles that are claimed by a wikiproject but not certified as usable can be tagged to notify the reader of their deficiencies. Opabinia regalis
Exactly. WP isn't broken. It's doing a great job as-is, with the human resources available. It's a true wonder, and expecting it to be wonderful x 1000 is just silly (like Wikipedia:Wikipedia is failing). — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
What's silly is replying to data showing significant problems with a statement as bland as 'it isn't broken'. That really doesn't advance the discussion at all. If you have evidence to show exactly how Wikipedia cannot be improved and is not suffering from any significant problems in producing high quality encyclopaedic content, please share. I see nothing at all in what you've said here that demonstrates any serious problems with the analysis in the essay. I invite you to have a look at Tool, Litre, Market, Dictatorship, Mind, South America, and Herodotus and consider whether they meet the standards you'd expect of a high quality encyclopaedia. All are on WP:VA. Worldtraveller 00:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Stop focusing time and effort on inconsequential articles about things that do not exist!

Much effort is expended on documenting the intricacies of the Star Wars universe, or anime cartoons, or obscure characters from comic books, etc. This is not only amateurish for an encyclopedia, but the time spent making these articles and editing them could be better spent on articles that actually belong in an encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.43.48 (talk • contribs) 07:33, 21 February 2007

The obvious fallacy is the notion that those same editors who work on that sort of thing would spend their time writing scholarly material if we somehow got them to cut out the cruft. This is unrealistic. Friday (talk) 15:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
This is true, but if there were far fewer comic and cartoon articles, you might find that far more academics and experts were interested in getting involved. Worldtraveller 18:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I doubt it. Wikipedia is Wikipedia, no matter how many articles like that there are. Academics and experts are still going to be skeptical of an encyclopedia whose fact checking method is hoping that if something is wrong, someone will wander by and correct it. -Amarkov moo! 19:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
The academics and experts I know and chatted about the wiki with never minded the pop articles. Their problem with the wiki is this.
Everyone bases their work on the work of others. In order to avoid being wrong, they can only
  • make sure there is no fault in their original parts and
  • make sure there is no fault in their choice of sources.
Sources can be wrong, and one can't check everything, so there is no guilt in falling for the mistake somebody else made. It is just that one's choice of sources has to be reasonable. They have to be things that, if wrong, "could have misled anyone", because otherwise. The wiki, not even claiming to be definite, cannot serve this purpose. So if any mistake from the wiki were to be propagated in scholarly work, the academic/expert himself would have made a mistake, in an environment where single mistakes can end careers. This is an unacceptable risk. The presence of pop articles is entirely unrelated to that. Denial 13:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
What is intrinsic in a set of data's contents that make it encyclopedic or not? What makes data amateurish versus professional? Why is it inconsequential to include data based on an individual's perception of that data's worth? I think the real problem here is the perception of what individuals, and consequentially groups of like minded individuals, subjectively find to be worthy of inclusion. The question needs to be asked, if the technology exists to include everything, why exclude something? To me, at least, it seems to boil down to individual's need to feel that their contribution is important, or more specifically, that their contribution is more important then someone else's contribution. Unfortunately for those who are trying to maintain, or establish, a degree of specificity in regards to Wikipedia's content, that design had long ago been abandoned. Wikipedia is no longer an online Encyclopedia in the most traditional understandings of that word. It is now become a tool by which a world's worth of human beings search for and contribute to it's collective understanding of their experience as living part of that world. This is, in my opinion at least, a far nobler ambition then that of the production of a simple encyclopedia. Why is there such a resistance to it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zenasprime (talk • contribs) 16:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Because the dissidents are eventually driven away, leaving those who favor the current system behind. As Larry Sanger pointed out, "the cultures of online communities generally are established pretty quickly and then very resistant to change, because they are self-selecting; that was certainly the case with Wikipedia, anyway." I've been hacking away at it for years, and they won't budge. It's time for a paradigm shift. I think the demand for it is building up. See my essay, Wikipedia:There is a deadline. Our solution be partially outside of this wiki. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 16:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia fail when ...

The wiki fail, when ...

  • it is not a wiki.

The encyclopedia fail, when ...

  • it is not an encyclopedia.

Wikipedia fail, when ...

  • it fail to be wiki and encyclopedia at the same time.

It is not a wiki, when ...

--Ans 03:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The question is, is the wiki- bit subsidiary to or more important than the -pedia bit? If aspects of a wiki system conflict with aspects of an encyclopaedia building project, then what gives? Worldtraveller 18:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
If they conflict, then wikipedia fail :) --Ans 12:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Why so? Worldtraveller 00:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
That's simple, since "if" it can't be both wiki and pedia at the same time, then it fail to be wikipedia, or it shouldn't be called wikipedia. --Ans 10:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I think what is leading to failings is the assumption that a wiki is good for every single aspect of writing an encyclopaedia. I think many people love the idea of a wiki so much that they are not willing to accept that it can conflict with the aims of the project. I think it would be great if more people saw that a wiki is amazingly good for generating content, but useless for maintaining it. Editors are forced to spend more and more time reverting vandalism instead of writing articles, and if you don't watch an article quite carefully it will soon degrade under the pressure of vandalism and poor edits. At the moment the project is like an assembly line where the finished product keeps on getting put back onto the conveyor belt. Worldtraveller 12:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Could the fact that WP (1) has become so popular and (2) the fact anyone can edit both be failing WP keeping it from being a true resource for accurate information? I will give you two examples in line with the above: 1) Trying to find the exact city where an individual was born (it was not listed in this site's article), I typed the person's full name and his US birth State (the info given in the WP article) into Google. The top results I got were the WP article as well as word for word copycat articles on Answers.com and several other sites. Making the assumption that the article was first created here (though I have no proof either way), if any of the information happened to be incorrect, it not only corrupts WP as a reasource but several others that copied the article from here (possibly done due to the site's popularity). Checking several other articles I got the exact same type of copy-paste results from WP to these other sites. 2) Diane Ladd: "At this time, there is some contention about her birth year. Some claim she was born in 1932 and others claim 1942." Despite 80 edits, no one has "facts" of when this person was born because of what "different sources say"? I have never encountered a general "It could be this or it could be that" comment in a Britanica. If I wanted to look for information on someone similar, having seeing this, WP is less likely a place I would come because I then feel the need to reverify everything -- something which I have less of a need to do using a professional, static encyclopedia. Comments? — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 03:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused. The first part of your criticism makes some amount of sense, although I'm not sure why it's a sign of failure. But the second part makes no sense to me. Why would you want an encyclopedia to always present something as the truth, even if it's in contention? Wouldn't you prefer an unbiased encyclopedia that just tells you about the controversy, without taking a side in it? -Amarkov moo! 04:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to confuse. My point is that I believe the second example is actually in contention only because the "sources" are possibly unsoured assumptions themselves or a mix of results on the web rather than a "no one really knows" situation. Both can't be true, and I'm sure if research was done using actual paper birth records, a single answer would be derived rather than there be any contention, which is what a typical encyclopedia does over partly information found on the web. To further explain this, I know for a fact that Jimmy Reed was born in the not-so-well-known town in Mississippi called Dunleith. However, many biographies credit him to being born in nearby Leland, Mississippi where he spent his childhood. For others who aren't certain, this could be in contention but I know it as fact, so what web sources say is irrelevant, however, anyone could very easily get into a revert war with me over the issue because a web search for this information shows an equal number of sites claiming each to be his home. How can WP be viewed as a good/accurate source of information on this specific piece of information if people can't agree on something that shouldn't even be debatable since he was only born in one of the two towns? This small example leads me to a larger believe that any information found here should not be taken as fact directly and should always met with some skepticism, which I don't think is a good word to be used with any information source that wants to maintain high stands (and it is most often these little things more thna the larger ones that show whether or not the standards are being met). That is why it concerns me. Maybe "fail" is too strong of a word to use, though. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 06:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The assumptions are incorrect...

...thereby invalidating any logical conclusion the essay may reach. Specifically assumption no. 2:

  • That articles which are not either FA or A-class fall below the standards that a reference work should demand of its content.

Virtually every article in the Micropedia of the Encyclopedia Britannica would, if included in Wikipedia, be start- or stub-class, having no references, no named contributors and only a couple of paragraphs of text. I think we should be aiming for more than that, but I think B-class is fine and GA-class more than enough, and there's nothing wrong with start- or stub- class for obscure topics – Qxz 22:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, we have more Featured Articles than there are articles in the Macropedia; and then the GA and A-class articles on top of that, all of which are larger than anything EB has outside the Macropedia. So we're already well past "Britannica-standard" in terms of quality – Qxz 22:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you read the criteria by which these gradings are given? For B-class articles ...a serious student or researcher trying to use the material would have trouble doing so, or would risk error in derivative work. For GA-class, other encyclopedias could do a better job. Worldtraveller 00:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Then the gradings are being handed out wrongly, which invalidates the first assumption instead. Unless you're taking "other encyclopedias could do a better job" literally – that is, if another encyclopedia chose to "feature" that topic in whatever way they have of doing such things, it would be better than Wikipedia's version. However this ignores the fact that in most cases no general encyclopedia has done a better job, and a more specialist work would need to be consulted to find a better article – and of course Wikipedia can never hope to beat all specialist works in their field, making this irrelevant as an assessment – Qxz 01:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, what "class" would you assign the Micropedia articles to? Start- or stub-class, as I suggested (and seems to fit the definition of the classes most closely)? If so, then by the arguments here Britannica has completely and utterly failed as an encyclopedia too, as has every other encyclopedia ever written. When you come to that sort of conclusion, it's time to go back and question your assumptions – Qxz 01:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
So what is wrong with the gradings? What should be different? If Wikipedia can never hope to beat specialist encyclopaedias then it must be failing if it is trying to do so.
No, I don't think stub or start classes apply to micropaedia articles. They have extensive systems in place to ensure that each article, long or short, is edited and vetted by several layers of process before it gets published. We don't have that. I don't think many people at all would say that Britannica articles are often "still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element", or "At best a brief, informed dictionary definition". Worldtraveller 10:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I looked at a couple of Britannica online articles (university subscription) when this essay was first publicized. They were very long; often one article on Britannica corresponds to five or more articles here. But if the parts of the EB article were split into the corresponding five articles, each one would rate no higher than Start class, because the coverage is quite shallow. In short, comparison with EB is only reasonable for a small number of articles about basic topics. For the majority of articles, as Qxz points out, there is no other encyclopedia that covers them, so whether another encyclopedia covers them better is a vacuous question. The fact that the topics are covered is already an initial success. CMummert · talk 04:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Can you give examples of Britannica articles that could reasonably be described as start class? That is, "The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element...Substantial/major editing is needed, most material for a complete article needs to be added". Worldtraveller 10:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Assuming you have access to Britannica, how would you judge, say, La Chanson de Roland or Naryn River? On what we'd call "core topics" Britannica is mostly very good but their fringe articles are often lacking somewhat. --Cherry blossom tree 12:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
An article like Naryn River should not, in my opinion, be marked as a stub here. It says really all that needs to be said; it will never be a 20kb brilliant article. As for its comparison with Britannica, well, they too say basically all that needs to be said, although they quote 700km for length where we have 807. I wouldn't describe either article as lacking. The other one I can't see right now but can look at from work on Monday.
This touches on what I think is a major problem - that because FAC increasingly approves articles that are way way over the recommended size (WP:SIZE), a lot of people think that short articles are no good. Instead of writing long articles on the most important subjects and short or even very short articles on anything else, increasingly people write massive amounts on articles that really don't require massive amounts, and neglect short articles because it clearly is not possible for them to become FA-style long articles. Worldtraveller 14:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that a lot more could be said about the Naryn River - what lives in it, what effect it has on the local economy, the geographical features and so on. It's possible that no-one knows this stuff, but in an ideal world it would be there. I think, based on our assessment scale, that stub or perhaps start is a fair rating. I do agree, though, that we tend to over-value length, throughout the project.
Your argument seems to be based on the fact that a large numbers of articles rated similar to (or even higher than) this one means that Wikipedia is failing. Do you see this article as an exception, then, either because it is more informative that average or because it covers a smaller topic than average? --Cherry blossom tree 15:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I can give several examples of start-class Britannica articles.
1. The WP article on group (mathematics) is significantly better than the short section on "group theory" in the "algebra, modern" article on EB. If that section of the EB article were rated here, it would be start class.
2. Look at the WP article Aldol reaction and compare it with the short paragraph on EB in the section "Aldol reaction" in "Chemical compund". Again, the EB section would be rated start-class.
I don't believe this is a rare phenomenon - most of the articles I see on EB are written far more shallowly than their corresponding articles here, except for a few basic topics such as planets, countries, etc. If our goal was to write extremely long articles in summary style, then it might be worth comparing to EB, because that is what most EB article seem to be. CMummert · talk 14:37, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I think I can best summarize this by saying that no, I don't think Wikipedia is failing, I think that as it has grown people's expectations have grown with it and the quality the project is supposedly now aiming for is simply not achievable. But that doesn't mean it has failed. The assessment classes are entirely a by-product of the "Wikipedia 1.0" subproject, and have been adopted by various WikiProjects; people are confusing conformance to their criteria with the original goals of the project. If we ignore them, and just look at the articles, and compare them with (a) what is to be found in other encyclopedias and (b) what our core policies say an article should be like, I think we will actually turn out to be doing reasonably well. There is still, of course, an imperceptibly huge amount of work to be done, but we are not failing – Qxz 18:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
The FA class articles are supposed to equal traditional encyclopedias with fact-checking and writing style. But Wikipedia, because it is not paper, is aiming for significantly more depth than traditional encyclopedias. The fact-checking and writing style issues in the condom article, for example, are in areas outside the scope of a traditional encyclopedia article. The very basic information (what is it, what are pregnancy rates among users) is just as good or better than traditional encyclopedias. But the article is in no shape to be nominated for GA or FA status, because insufficient work has been done on the expanded coverage unique to Wikipedia.
Saying that the small percentage of FA articles is evidence Wikipedia is "failing" is basically saying it has failed to greatly exceed traditional encyclopedias, not that it has failed to equal them. Lyrl Talk C 14:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Dire state of philosophy articles

Wiki has attracted some attention from philosophers in a series of posts here. edward (buckner) 10:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Philosophy I expect to be a hard case for some time. The science and math articles on Wikipedia are the best not just because the type of people to contribute are likely to be inclined to it; it's also because technical topics are not as likely to attract fringe crusaders. The religion articles at least benefit from a healthy number of both supporters and detractors, so that extremes can be dulled to a proper consensus. And while pop culture attracts a large number of mediocre contributions, there are also dedicated "good" editors to organizing that, and there are verifiable "right" answers and complete articles for those topics. Philosophy, unfortunately, attracts large numbers of both fringe theory cranks and well-meaning pretentious idiots. Frankly, the pretentious idiot can do more damage than a vandal, because their work may look reasonable to an amateur and require an expert to notice that it makes absolutely no sense. Even worse, considering the small number of true experts vs. people who read a cool book at the bookstore, many of the actual philosophers are massively riven over philosophical topics, and there are a fair number of Ph.Ds out there with their own weird theories who should be allowed nowhere near Wikipedia. (Whatever happened to that proposal to grant a speedy exit to people who didn't technically break policy, but polluted good articles with bad edits, thus driving off the experts?)
Take the above with a grain of salt as I am a self-admitted amateur in the field. I sincerely hope that we don't drive all the good philosophy contributors away with senseless bannings. SnowFire 06:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
When I was at one philosophy class at university, I remember the lecturer saying that these days, nobody is capable of writing a comprehensive and high quality work on the entire history of philosophy, by reason of the scope of the subject. So perhaps Wikipedia's failure should not be perceived as so much of a big deal, although I also believe it has better chances of writing such a work than anybody else.—Toccata quarta (talk) 05:07, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

(yawn)

This alarmist article pronounces:

Vital articles lists 1182 articles on topics that can be considered essential. These topics should have articles of the very highest quality - ideally a featured article.

Is whoever wrote this studying to be a demaogogue who thrives by alarming the uninformed public? Reading the sentence above inclines me to think the rest of this polemic will probably be boring and uninformative. Michael Hardy 19:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, well... a number of us tried to improve the article, but we weren't "allowed" to. The original editor has since left, so, please, go for your life if you think that you can fix the article! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Have you tried reading the first sentence at the vital articles article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.179.87.236 (talk) 23:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

(contagious yawn)

As an authoritative online resource, the Wikipedia has been, is, and always will be a failure. It is the Wikipedia's nature to fail in that sense because the number of "editors" producing non-authoritative articles is uncountable. I can't count them all; you can't count them all; all of us counting at the same time might be able to count them all if we leave out all of the sockpuppets and remote vandal-bots. This makes their number legion.

Where the Wikipedia is outrageously successful is in being the Cliffnotes of the Internet. The number of mirrors is still countable, but it grows every week because the Wikipedia is perhaps the best non-authoritative, non-citable resource for information in the known universe, not including my Aunt Zelda's gossipy online coffee clutch. The Wikipedia is the best place to read up on things personally unknown when we as editors take the time to include outside, reliable and verifiable sources in the vandalizable articles-of-note we write, but the concept of an authoritative Wikipedia is an unreachable ideal, an asymptotic limit if you will, and it is nowhere near the asymptote yet. Hotfeba 20:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know when this feature was added, but one thing that helps our articles to be more authoritative is the ability to render PDF copies of wikipedia articles, which can be hosted elsewhere on the Internet and do include a copy of the GFDL. While this does not fully address concerns over editor anonymity, at least having un-editable copy elsewhere does reduce the damage from vandalism, even as it introduces real challenges for website-subverting hackers. Hotfeba (talk) 00:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Who "features" the articles?

I don't get it. Who is given the authority to decide which articles pass off as "excellent?" How does this rating system work, exactly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.65.196.182 (talk) 15:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:featured articles. The process is not secret. Andrewa (talk) 21:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia is a laughingstock

Everyone in my school thinks it is lame. Belicia (talk) 03:11, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Everyone here thinks your school is lame. (Check the talk page for a REAL laugh.) Orethrius (talk) 15:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
:Wikipedia is lame. It's not even creditable. It's so bad, teachers won't accept Wikipedia articles as references.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.66.108 (talk) 21:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Questioning the Standard

The purpose of an Enclopedia.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.55.6 (talk) 07:19, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

A real encyclopedia hires experts on topics to write articles. It also sources material from sources determined reputable by neutral experts on the topics. Unfortunately for wikipedia they don't have this luxury. While they stick to policies that apparantly don't work it will remain known as a second class imitation. Maybe put some of those funds to better use letting the public know how imperfect it really is instead of burying those comments in obscure texts and passing the policies off as "high standards" and fighting off lawsuits. 196.207.44.240 (talk) 23:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

No surprise

I have published statistics about good and bad articles and then had to fight the afd zealots; I'm not even sure I can find them in my userspace any more.

My attempt to provide balance to biased articles was itself labeled an act of Wikipedia:POV pushing; to cap the irony, the afd zealots made me move that essay to User:Ed Poor/POV pushing. That's right: the only article which opposes POV pushing is in the userspace of a man put on indefinite probation for alleged POV pushing. Ah, the irony is delicious.

Solution? None until the overwhelming majority of contributors genuinely want to make good articles. We must return to the spirit of the old days - like 2002 to 2004 - when everyone was making a serious effort to assemble and present useful knowledge. --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia looks pretty good to me these days, Ed. I come here to "add to" or "edit" articles with sources, and usually all I do is learn more. What's your problem? Unable to finagle your POV into articles? Huw Powell (talk) 08:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
"when everyone was making a serious effort to assemble and present useful knowledge"? By that do you mean "when no one had yet realised I was a stealth creationist"?
Ed, really, as long as the POV pushers like you are dissatisfied, Wikipedia is doing fine. The Black Rabbit of Inlé(Talk) 18:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
By the way, could you change the title of this section to "No Surprises"? Pretty please? The Black Rabbit of Inlé(Talk) 18:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that both comments included a personal attack; each also begs the question. Unless Wikipedians try to address the reasons it is failing, it will continue to deteriorate. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:35, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm very sorry you see my comment as a personal attack, Ed. Which part, specifically, constitutes an attack? Do you dislike being categorised as a creationist? — ラビット The Black Rabbit of Inlé(I have no idea whether that word is capitalised...)
It's the way you presented it. You aren't sorry. You called him a "stealth creationist" and put words in the guy's mouth. It's uncivil and you know it. I'm not a creationist myself, and I'm new to Wikipedia, but it's this garbage that turns good editors off. Yes, I know I'm late with this comment, but this is just... bad. 74.5.110.177 (talk) 13:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
+1 196.207.44.240 (talk) 19:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Unreliable

You never know if something on the net is true, so that's why wikipedia is unreliable. 89.249.0.170 (talk) 19:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is failing is failing

Any chance of an update, naysayers?  Skomorokh  22:27, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 16:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
I forgot to stress: read it and learn it! Then read the essay. The essay does not claim that WP is failing, it reflects over various alleged failings of WP. There's no need to be dishonest over this. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 16:24, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

"meager coverage of subjects"?

Are you joking! That's one problem Wikipedia DOESN'T have. Just take a trawl through the labyrinthine plehora of abstruse psychological subjects, for example, or the pharmacology of almost every synthesized drug in existence. Etc. (User:Psychonavigation) 149.135.146.89 (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Dartmouth University?

Dartmouth University hasn't existed in almost 200 years, I think you mean Dartmouth College.Naraht (talk) 15:42, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

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